Courses
BIOL 330 - Study Design and Data Analysis
Recent Undergrad Collaborators & Projects
I have been fortunate to have worked with some fantastic undergraduates! Here’s a quick rundown of who they are, and what we worked on together (in roughly reverse chronological order):
Meg Thompson
(Directed Studies) is studying the interaction between kelp physiological processes and environmental conditions. She arrived with some impressive skills, knowing how to handle ROVs, underwater cameras, and hydrophones. She is also a scuba instructor, which is handy for when I (as a novice snorkel/dive guy) inevitably do something stupid.
Matt Bakken
(Directed Studies) is studying the effect of artificial light at night on habitat choice and settlement in marine macroinvertebrate communities. In addition to loving all things marine, he is an avid herp-o-phile. Don’t ask him where he spent his student loans, or why he always has a bottle of (wetsuit) lube handy.
Mariano Garcia-Barandiaran
(Directed Studies) studied the host preference and phenotypic (colour) plasticity of a marine worm, symbiotic with various invertebrates, including sea stars and keyhole limpets. He is evidently impervious to cold water and he promises to teach me how to catch some flounder/sole.
Paula Mali
(VKURA) is studying the social behaviour and life history of intertidal jumping spiders. One of the things she has taught me is that a competition swimming pool is a balmy 26ºC, which fully explains why I’m such a wimp in the (much colder) ocean around Victoria.
Alastair Baird
(Directed Studies) studied evolutionary divergence and sexual dimorphism of raptorial forelimb allometry in ambush bugs. Don’t let him ‘ambush’ you in badminton, or with his profound knowledge of the things to do in Nanaimo!
Marco Joly
(VKURA) worked on the reproductive behaviours of adult intertidal jumping spiders. In addition to unraveling some of the weird behaviours and ecology of these improbable critters, you can find him biking or piloting planes! He is currently enrolled in the Biochemistry and Microbiology program at UVic.
Devin Hentschel
(Honours Thesis) was the full time babysitter of teenaged intertidal jumping spiders, which evidently refuse to grow up, and are not even as angry or angsty as we’d hoped. He also found that the spiders, like us people in Victoria, are oblivious to the idea of winter. He is now working as an environmental consultant in Vancouver.
(Honours Thesis) worked on ambush bug biogeography, and somehow managed to make it look like I know the first thing about climate change. When she’s not getting buff, training for dragon boat races, she’s doing her PhD in arctic ecology at U of Toronto Mississauga. She has the distinction of being the only person I know who got a firearms license before a driver’s license. Her website [here].
Julia Fang
(Thesis Project & NSERC USRA) has worked on several projects including ambush bug life history evolution and reproductive interference in bean beetles. In addition to her scientific advances, she has recently discovered that turkey is actually delicious. She completed her Master of Forest Conservation Biology at U of T and is enrolled in the dentistry program at U of T.
William Chen
(Thesis Project & Research Assistant)—when not Judo-throwing, rabbit wrassling, or learning Ontario fishing regulations—worked on pre-zygotic mating isolation [his 2019 poster here] and locomotory performance in ambush bugs. He is now enrolled in the optometry program at U of Waterloo.
Saanmugi Shanmugadasan
(Research Assistant) did research on condition dependent sexual conflict in water striders, and ambush bug ecology. She holds the record for most Tim Hortons ‘iced caps’ consumed in a single field season, and managed to not die of food poisoning despite storing Eggo waffles in the fridge (not freezer) all summer.
Nikol Dimitrov
(Research Assistant) worked on sexually antagonistic morphology in water striders, and has the unique (unfortunate?) claim of being the only student at UofT who managed to take/tolerate every course I taught there. She has recently completed an MSc in ecology at U of T and works for the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Jenna Cardoso
(WorkStudy) worked on ambush bug growth and development, while piloting/troubleshooting the infamous ‘Predatron 3000’. Later she completed a Master of Forest Conservation degree at UofT, which she has used to master her gardening skillz. She also has a puppy named ‘Stevie’.
April Patmanathan
(Workstudy) studied the vibratory signals & courtship behaviour of ambush bugs. If you have been through the Toronto International Airport, there’s a chance that she knows about the disturbing things you pack in your luggage. After an MSc at UTSC, she is fulfilling her lifelong dream of working on polar bear conservation with the Canadian Wildlife Service!
Roegan Vetro
(Research Assistant) did research on ambush bug immunity, as well as sexual conflict in water striders. He also taught me the weird and diverse habits of Neuropterans. He went on to do his MSc in applied entomology at U of Amsterdam to get in touch with his Euro roots, and to feed his habit for world travel.
Andrew Williams
(Honour’s Thesis) worked on viability selection and predatory morphology in ambush bugs. He went on to do his MSc in environmental sciences at Toronto Metropolitan U, and is probably swimming in mad cheddah (funding $), via the biological version of the ‘Green Rush’.